Andy Ostroy has posted a poignant message about his wife, Adrienne Shelly, whose accused murderer, illegal alien day laborer Diego Pillco, reportedly tried to cover up the crime by faking a suicide scene.

New Yorkers speak out about compromised borders and safety. A sample:

Adrienne Shelly did not commit suicide but was murdered, allegedly by an illegal-alien construction worker (”Suicide Actress: It Was Murder,” Nov. 7).

Last spring, another illegal-alien construction worker murdered a woman.

I hope their families sue the contractors whose greed caused them to hire these people. If they had followed the law and bothered to check identifications, both these women would be alive.

Since money must be the motive for hiring these illegals, I hope the families sue and get large settlements. Maybe it will cause employers to think twice before endangering neighborhoods by bringing in people who have already broken the law by entering the United States.

John Habersberger
New Paltz

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When are people going to wake up to this problem of illegal immigration? And where is the outrage?

If we enforced our laws, this woman would be alive…

John Riley
Brooklyn

The New York Post reported more details of Pillco’s employer, who knowingly hired and harbored illegal alien workers.

John Andrews has related thoughts in the Rocky Mountain News on illegal alien crime and the AWOL MSM:

Whatever happened to investigative journalism? As a young White House staffer in 1974, I saw it bring down a president. In the past month, our lazy journalistic watchdogs couldn’t even sniff out the main story between two would-be governors.

Granted, Bill Ritter’s victory over Bob Beauprez was so broad and deep that no great difference ultimately resulted from the October storm over plea bargains and leaks. Still, that episode is worth reviewing, not as a rehash of the campaign, but as a case study in media attitudes.

You remember the endless stories about a federal agent with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement who allegedly gave the Beauprez campaign information on a criminal alien who had benefited from a plea bargain allowed by Ritter when he was district attorney. The media compliantly played up the Democrat’s attack on his Republican opponent for using the information in an ad. And they had a field day with the FBI leak investigation.

This was grossly hypocritical, because if the leak had come to them, they would have both used it and protected their source. It also revealed an odd lack of interest in the information itself and its relevance to the former district attorney’s qualifications for higher office. Why weren’t the media energetically digging up this seamy stuff on their own?

Instead of joining one side’s “shoot the messenger” ploy against the other, a truly vigilant press would have been (and still should be) probing what other skeletons are buried in the data on illegal alien crime. Try these questions for starters:

What percentage of arrests for DUI offenses in 2005 were illegal aliens? Recall that Justin Goodman of Thornton was killed in 2004 on his motorcycle by an illegal alien driver who had six prior DUI and other driving violations in Boulder and Adams counties. The man had never been referred to ICE for deportation.

Does the Denver city attorney’s standing policy of not asking questions in court about the legitimacy of Mexican driver’s licenses presented by defendants have any consequences for the law-abiding citizens of Denver? Recall that the man who killed police officer Donnie Young had used an invalid Mexican driver’s license to avoid jail in Denver municipal court only three weeks before the slaying.

Why is it that a full year after the Colorado attorney general stated that one- quarter of Colorado’s outstanding fugitive homicide warrants are for people who have fled to Mexico, no newspaper has asked how many of the individuals named in the warrants were illegal aliens with prior arrests? (In Los Angeles County, there are more than 400 such fugitive warrants.)

How are sanctuary cities like Durango, Boulder and Denver responding to SB 90, the new state law passed in 2006 to outlaw sanctuary cities? What is ICE doing to respond to SB 90?

If Denver received federal reimbursement for the incarceration of more than 1,100 illegal aliens in 2004, why were only 175 deported when they finished their terms? What subsequent crimes did the other 925 criminal aliens commit?

Think of how newspapers cover every other major policy issue–the war, abortion, health care, homeland security, racial discrimination, you name it. They have no problem taking one “anecdote” and using it to illustrate what they see as systemic failures. They have no problem sensationalizing individual cases of “undocumented workers” and their families. But point out a crime victim of an illegal alien? All of sudden, the journalism-by-anecdote school can’t accept such “emotional” and “ideological” story-telling.

Funny–or rather, not so funny–how that works, isn’t it?

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A couple of readers mistakingly believe that those of us calling attention to Pillco’s illegal status somehow believe the crime would have been less heinous or tolerable if he were legal.

It’s hard for me to understand how you could miss the very simple point:

If our physical borders were adequately enforced, if illegal alien smuggling laws were adequately enforced, if employer sanctions were adequately forced, and if illegal alien sanctuary laws were abolished, Diego Pillco would never have been able to come here, stay here, work here, and kill here. And Adrienne Shelly would be alive today.

Lax immigration enforcement has consequences–and it ain’t all about cheap lettuce and hotel rates. Ask the 9/11 Families for a Secure America.

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Even if the open-borders lobby refuses to get it, citizens across the country do. From amnesty cheerleader George Bush’s Texas:

Farmers Branch city councilmembers unanimously approved three controversial ordinances Monday night designed to discourage illegal immigrants from living or working in the city limits.

The first ordinance designates English as the official language of Farmers Branch. The second calls for the training of local law officers to enforce federal laws on immigration. The third punishes any business owners who employ illegal immigrant or landowners who rent to them…

They’re doing the job the feds won’t do–and the job the open-borders RNC doesn’t want the feds to do.

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Flashback: Heather Mac Donald - The Illegal Alien Crime Wave

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